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[centre] [i]” There are no heroes...in life, the monsters win”[/i] -George R.R Martin. [/centre]

They moved quietly through the park, huddled closely together, the unbridled chaos of the city barely out of reach. A downpour of rain had turned the ground to brown mush, and the cold weather had frozen it solid, making the terrain immensely uncomfortable to cross. A thick line of tress ran around the park, their branches and leaves blocking out the moonlight, shrouding the area in an almost unbroken blanket of darkness. 

Chessa pulled her jacket tightly around her body in an attempt to fend off the cold, as she shambled awkwardly across the park, fighting to keep up with her brother. Kyle soldiered onwards, the large rucksack slung uneasily across his narrow shoulders, Pump-action shotgun gripped tightly in both hands. 

Her brother had set out with steely determination burning in his eyes, his body pumping with adrenaline, his one and only objective to get him and his sister as far from danger as he could. The unfaltering drive was still very much present, but his face was thick with lines of strain, bags hung beneath his eyes, and he was using every ounce of his strength to maintain the rapid pace he had grown accustomed to. He was tired. 

“Kyle!” Chessa called out to him, fighting to speak through ragged breaths. She had never been particularly fit to begin with, and the seemingly never-ending walking was really taking it out of her. “Let’s just rest for a minute, yeah?! Neither of us can keep going like this for much longer!” 

He stopped and turned to face her, that same frantic look he’d been wearing since the apartment still dancing across his eyes “We keep going.” He told her firmly, an unspoken authority hidden beneath his words. 

“We have to get out of here before-“ 

“Before what, Kyle?” A voice, thick and deep, boomed from the shadows. 

They appeared seemingly all at once, figures of varying shapes and sizes all sliding out of the shadows, slipping into existence. Pete himself appeared last, tall and imposing as ever, surrounded by a small mob of his men. 

Within seconds the group had surrounded them both, an impenetrable net, ensnaring them in its vice-like grip. 

“Leaving without saying goodbye?” Pete chuckled as he spoke, a dark and terrible laugh. 

“Pete…how did you-“ 

“Find you? We just followed the gunshots.” 

Chessa’s eyes darted from man to man, taking in the sheer amount of thugs that surrounded them. When her brain could devise no escape plan, she turned to address the mob boss. 

“We did what you asked!” She pleaded with him “You’ve got no reason to hold us here!” 

Pete raised one dark eyebrow at her, an amused expression crossing his likeness. “You mean he didn’t tell you? How very un-brotherly of him.” 

“Tell me what…?” She turned to face Kyle. He was gazing meekly at the ground, defeated. 

“I want my money, Kyle.” Pete said authoritatively, fixing him with a dark stare. 

Kyle rested the gun against his leg, reaching into the rucksack and pulling out a large wad of cash, all wound up in a rubber bands, before tossing it at Pete’s feet. The money landed on the floor with a gentle [i]thump[/i]. 

The large man bent down and scooped it up with his thick hands, grinning broadly to himself. 

“That’s everything.” Kyle assured him. 

“I’m sure it is, but you see…I promised my boys some fun.” 

The figures begun to edge forwards, and Chessa realised what they were holding; Pipes, tire irons, machetes, knives, and a whole manner of improvised weaponry.

Whirring to life again, Kyle fired a round into the nearest thug, blasting him backwards and turning his chest into red mush, the spray of the shotgun sending a few others sprawling to the ground. 

Before he had a chance to fire again, a steel hammer slammed into Kyle’s leg, a sickening crunch echoing throughout the park as his knee cap was shattered. He screamed and tumbled to floor, dropping the shotgun as he clutched at his bloody leg.

Chessa wailed and went rushing to his aid, but someone tripped her, and she ended up face down in the mud, her mouth full of blood and earth.

“[b]Please! Don’t[/b]” She looked up just in time to see hatchet smash into her brother’s face, biting through skin and bone, and knocking him into the dirt. He shakily raised his head, unrecognisable amidst all the gushing blood and ripped flesh, his breathing broken and raspy, but the hatchet swung again, and this time he didn’t get back up. 

Chessa made a frantic dive for the shotgun, but Pete’s boot clad foot cam slamming down on her hand, crushing her fingers beneath its heel. She sobbed and spat, lying helplessly on the floor, gazing up at the large man as he towered over her, surrounded by his ruthless posy. 

There was a flash of steel, and then suddenly he held a machete in one hand, glistening grimly in the darkness. 

“It’s all fun and games, until someone loses an eye.” He lectured, that sickly broad grin plastered across his face. 

“Or an arm.” 

He brought the machete down in a vicious ark, still pinning her down with his foot, and sliced straight through her forearm, severing it at the elbow, blood pooling out across the floor as she shrieked and wailed, pain overloading her system, burning throughout every fibre of her being until it was all that she knew. 

Over her own screams, she could hear the men laughing. 

They left her there, screeching and crying and writhing in the dirt, slowly bleeding out, with her severed arm lying next to her. 

[b]”I’LL KILL YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT! I’LL RIP OUT YOUR FUCKING HEART AND EAT IT!”[/b] before too long she no longer had then energy to keep screaming, so she curled into a ball and wept, as the world went dark.